New piracy technique on PS4 in Brazil confirmed to be real, Sony might take legal action

We’ve revealed a few weeks ago that some electronic stores in Brazil were advertising a way to copy pirate video games onto your PS4 for a fee. Although the technique was not described in details (these stores wanted, after all, to make a profit out of the scheme, not share it for everyone to get it for free, or for Sony to patch it), we’ve been in touch with several members of the hacking scene, as well as customers of these stores, who have all confirmed the existence of the “hack”.

PS4 Hack for piracy confirmed to be real

Yesterday, journalists at UOL Jogos, a trusted site in Brazil, have confirmed that the hack is real, as they have verified it themselves on a test console (original article, in Portuguese, can be found here). It needs to be emphasized that this is not the well known “account sharing” trick, but a new kind of hack.

Small electronics store in some streets of Sao Paulo will charge from R$ 300 to R$ 400 (about $100 to $150) in order to install 10 pirated games on your console. The UOL journalists have confirmed the hack to work on their own console.

The process, as described by Brazilian modchip stores, is close to what we have explained before: a Dump of a “legit” console with a dozen games on it is performed, and copied to the target console. In addition to a copy of the hard drive, it is safe to assume a dump of the NAND/BIOS is performed as well. It seems the dump is performed with the help of a regular raspberry pi, as this had been implied the first time we uncovered this story.

The process described on UOL is extremely similar to what has been described on the scene, and as we reported here. Activate a PS4 for a given account, make a full copy of its state/NAND, deactivate it, then copy the backed-up NAND again. UOL mentions however that in their experiment, their console ended up with 2 registered accounts, which are part of the cloning process, and required for the games to work.

A new way to pirate PS4 games, a lucrative business

Other ways have existed for pirates in the past: Sony lets people activate several consoles on the same account, so some people abuse that system by sharing accounts with their friends. This piracy technique remains limited as you can only share an account with a limited number of consoles. This new technique, however, has virtually no limit to how many PS4s could replicate the games. As such, this is a very lucrative business for these electronics shop, who make close to 100% profit on this technique.

These shops in Brazil charge about $100 to install 10 games. These games would cost almost $600 normally. This is a great deal for both the client and the seller. To get more games, one has to come back to the store and pay roughly $15 for each additional game. UOL mention that with 10 games of the current generation, your PS4 hard drive is pretty much full anyway, so you’ll have to erase a few ones to add new ones.

The article on UOL mentions that the hack initially originated on a Russian site. Given what I’ve been told so far though, it could literally have originated from anywhere, as it is heavily inspired from a similar technique on the PS3 that is widely known. It could be one of those “not so secret” secrets of the scene.

As we’ve discussed before, this is not really what could be considered as a PS4 Jailbreak, and of minimal interest from a homebrew perspective. It is still interesting however, from my point of view, to confirm once again that a system is as secure as its weakest link. Although no encryption is broken here, pirates are still able to find their way, while us “homebrewers” are left in the cold.

Sony already taking legal action in Brazil

Sony are not totally ignoring the issue of piracy in Brazil. It seems they are aware of the “account sharing” technique (and how some stores are monetizing it) and already sending cease and desist notices about that. It is safe to assume they will at least do the same for this new piracy technique, and will probably be looking into ways to patch the hack. As a reminder, people on the PS4 hacking scene have told us that the technique they knew about has been patched on 2.51, so it seems the technique used by Brazilian stores is slightly different from that.

As always, we will be keeping our PS4 Jailbreak page up to date with the latest PS4 Jailbreak news, so you can be aware as soon as a valid technique exists that doesn’t solely rely on the greed of a few pirates.

Thanks to everyone who pointed out the UOL Jogos article, too many of you guys to give proper credit at this point!

161 Responses

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These idiotic companies need to realize that they created piracy by pricing stuff so *** high heck for the price of a base PS4,I can get a much better PC + 5-6 games for the same price in my country(~$900)

Sadly its not them who should realize that their products are really expensive, but us, the customers, and avoid buying them. Something we won’t do because most of us are too greedy and we only want to have the most recent products no matter its real cost.

As for the pirates… again, sadly most of the times they depend upong the scene’s results from each console to get their profit, as soon as a new development in a hack/CFW becomes real, many pirates start selling the method to achieve the goal. That’s because all pirates who get profit from the scene’s findings don’t have a f’ idea of how that really works and most methods are developed to be easy to do by the final customer, but anyway, many don’t even want to try and avoid paying for something that’s free in first hand, they are too lazy to try. So the you can find lots of consoles on mercadolibre (online buying *** company) being sold expensively with a microSD of 16/32 GB full of “gifts”.

As long as most “final users” are willing to pay for getting the “job” done, more pirates will keep selling at very high prices the results of the scene developers, who in the end do it for the will of knowledge of how this or that device works.

So if piracy runs rampant on a console, do you think publishers will continue making games for it? Nope, take a look at the psp. It got abandoned for several years before the vita came out. Hacking consoles aren’t good for perspective owners of the console nor the publishers. Why do you even think hacking consoles and piracy is so bad to begin with. Its not like you need 60-80 dollar games to begin with, so dont argue that point. If you can’t afford the basics in life, then why are looking at something so expensive as a game console. Worry about food and shelter before playing video games. People who pirate always try to argue to the pricing ***. Well, look at steam sales and quit arguing about this 60 dollar ***. Wait for sales and you don’t need play the latest games out. Plenty out there to keep you occupied. Shady *** like this wont help sony, publishers, nor the developers to continue making stuff for the ps4. So remember who foots the bills to make these games. Its businesses like gamestop and shady *** like this that take out the money for the developers who continue to make triple a titles or even great indie games. Games are expensive to make, some are more than others. Somewhere in the millions and it’s risky business to make.

but it can be in balance those who can afford dont jailbreak because it has its downside and developers will still make games for it just look at xbox 360 the most exploited console yet it had a glorious era

You’re right, just look at how many good games the Vita has due to not having piracy for years! And the PS2, the best selling console of all times and probably the most pirated too, clearly has next to no good games due to those DAMNED pirates, right?

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